The Stage

Benchmark call to combat ‘substandard’ drama schools

Published Tuesday 9 January 2007 at 11:40 by Nuala Calvi

London’s Actors Centre has called for a benchmark system to be introduced for drama schools, claiming many are turning out actors with substandard training.

The centre says there has been an explosion of new schools offering acting courses but students frequently complain that they are dissatisfied with the standards of teaching they receive.

Actors Centre artistic director Matthew Lloyd told The Stage: “I take a very dim view of the calibre of some of the people who’ve just qualified and come to the Actors Centre. Some of them I can’t believe have spent two or three years training. There’s been an explosion of interest in becoming an actor and a lot of programmes on TV give the impression anyone can do it. It gives people the wrong idea that they can do training in a very skimpy way and go out and be a success.

“There are some very poor courses and drama schools out there and I’ve heard anecdotally too many stories about people running drama courses where they don’t have the practical resources or qualifications to give people thorough training.”

The National Council for Drama Training provides accreditation for an estimated 55 individual courses but far more, including a substantial number run by members of the elite Conference of Drama Schools, are unaccredited.

Lloyd said he would support a benchmark scheme - similar to that being introduced by the Council for Dance Education and Training in conjunction with The Stage - to establish objective standards in drama training that would apply to all schools.

The centre’s membership secretary, Fred Vogelius, said he received around 20 calls a month from people saying they were unhappy with the level of training they received in return for their money and that of the actors that auditioned for membership, the majority who came from non-accredited courses were dissatisfied with their training.

However Tim Gill, executive director of Court Theatre Training Company, which runs BA courses in collaboration with Thames Valley University that are not NCDT accredited, said accredited courses were not necessarily better.

“We have contemplated doing NCDT awards but decided against it because we didn’t want to be restricted by their framework and we were more vocationally orientated,” he said.

The Actors Centre is to open its doors to non-members for the first time this year in response to the problem, offering a month-long introduction to acting which includes detailed advice on how to go about choosing a drama school.

The centre is also planning to set up a new section on its website answering questions about the best ways to break into the industry, how to check out drama courses and balance the quality and cost of training.

• Have you had problems with your drama school? Please tell us at newsdesk@thestage.co.uk